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When the fight had been won–the Emancipation Proclamation issued–there were still other fights ahead. The habit of Phillips’ life had become fixed.

He and Ann lived in that plain little home on Exeter Street, and to this home of love he constantly turned for rest and inspiration.

At the close of the War he found his fortune much impaired, and he looked to the Lyceum Stage–the one thing for which he was so eminently fitted.

It was about the year Eighteen Hundred Eighty that a callow interviewer asked him who his closest associates were. The answer was: “My colleagues are hackmen and hotel-clerks; and I also know every conductor, brakeman and engineer on every railroad in America. My home is in the caboose, and my business is establishing trains.”

I heard Wendell Phillips speak but once. I was about twelve years of age, and my father and I had ridden ten miles across the wind-swept prairie in the face of a winter storm.

It was midnight when we reached home, but I could not sleep until I had told my mother all about it. I remember the hall was packed, and there were many gaslights, and on the stage were a dozen men–all very great, my father said. One man arose and spoke. He lifted his hands, raised his voice, stamped his foot, and I thought he surely was a very great man. He was just introducing the real speaker.

Then the Real Speaker walked slowly down to the front of the stage and stood very still. And everybody was awful quiet–no one coughed, nor shuffled his feet, nor whispered–I never knew a thousand folks could be so still. I could hear my heart beat–I leaned over to listen and I wondered what his first words would be, for I had promised to remember them for my mother. And the words were these–“My dear friends: We have met here tonight to talk about the Lost Arts.”… That is just what he said–I’ll not deceive you–and it wasn’t a speech at all–he just talked to us. We were his dear friends–he said so, and a man with a gentle, quiet voice like that would not call us his friends if he wasn’t our friend.

He had found out some wonderful things and he had just come to tell us about them; about how thousands of years ago men worked in gold and silver and ivory; how they dug canals, sailed strange seas, built wonderful palaces, carved statues and wrote books on the skins of animals. He just stood there and told us about these things–he stood still, with one hand behind him, or resting on his hip, or at his side, and the other hand motioned a little–that was all. We expected every minute he would burst out and make a speech, but he didn’t–he just talked. There was a big, yellow pitcher and a tumbler on the table, but he didn’t drink once, because you see he didn’t work very hard–he just talked–he talked for two hours. I know it was two hours, because we left home at six o’clock, got to the hall at eight, and reached home at midnight. We came home as fast as we went, and if it took us two hours to come home, and he began at eight, he must have been talking for two hours. I didn’t go to sleep–didn’t nod once.

We hoped he would make a speech before he got through, but he didn’t. He just talked, and I understood it all. Father held my hand: we laughed a little in places, at others we wanted to cry, but didn’t–but most of the time we just listened. We were going to applaud, but forgot it. He called us his dear friends.

I have heard thousands of speeches since that winter night in Illinois. Very few indeed can I recall, and beyond the general theme, that speech by Wendell Phillips has gone from my memory. But I remember the presence and attitude and voice of the man as though it were but yesterday. The calm courage, deliberation, beauty and strength of the speaker–his knowledge, his gentleness, his friendliness! I had heard many sermons, and some had terrified me. This time I had expected to be thrilled, too, and so I sat very close to my father and felt for his hand. And here it was all just quiet joy–I understood it all. I was pleased with myself; and being pleased with myself, I was pleased with the speaker. He was the biggest and best man I had ever seen–the first real man.